Sony has announced the free PlayStation 4 games that PlayStation Plus users will be able to download in July 2020. Today marks the 10 year anniversary of PlayStation Plus, which launched on PlayStation 3 on June 29th, 2010. While June’s titles included Call of Duty: World War 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront 2, to mark the 10 year anniversary of the service, Sony has announced that July’s monthly games will include three games.
The free monthly games for July 2020 are sports game NBA 2K20, action-adventure game Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration, and a bonus title, FMV adventure game Erica. These titles will be available from July 7th until August 3rd. While NBA 2K20 and Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration have received positive review scores, sitting at 78 and 88 on Metacritic, respectively, Erica has seen more of a mixed response, with a Metacritic score of 69. NBA 2K20 also features an abysmal user score of 1.1 on Metacritic, which appears to be in response to the game’s microtransactions.
The response to Sony’s tweet announcing the titles that will be free next month have been generally positive, however many have criticized the inclusion of NBA 2K20, with many asking Sony to replace NBA 2K20 with another game, as it did for Konami’s PES: Pro Evolution Soccer 2019 in July 2019. While there has been no comment from Sony yet, the demand does not appear to be as bad for the game to be changed as there was during July 2019.
The response to this month’s titles also isn’t as negative to the response to May’s titles, Cities: Skylines - PlayStation 4 Edition and Farming Simulator 2019, which was heavily criticized by users as their appeal as simulation games was limited. This was especially bad in comparison to months prior, which included titles such as the 2018 remake of Shadow of the Colossus and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Thankfully, June’s titles were well received, as Sony appeared to take more time to consider the titles, releasing Call of Duty: World War 2 on the service a week before Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
PlayStation Plus users will also be happy to hear that Sony will be releasing an exclusive free PlayStation 4 theme to celebrate the 10 year anniversary as well as hosting a free multiplayer weekend, starting July 4th at 12:01am and ending July 5th at 11:59pm, local time. Call of Duty: World War 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 are still available to be redeemed before July 7th 2020.
